Despite the recent flood of low-priced, high-quality inkjet printers, theres been comparatively little movement on the budget laser front, with Kyoceras FS-1000 (reviewed issue 34, p85) dominating our A-List since September last year. This looks set to change now, however, with Samsungs update to the 6050 model - the ML-6060, coming under scrutiny in this issue. The inkjet trend of increasing quality and decreasing price has steadily been extending to laser printers, and Samsungs new ML-6060 looks set to follow.
The ML-6060 sits in the mid-range of Samsungs new line of laser printers, offering 12ppm print speeds, 4Mb of RAM and an impressive 550-sheet paper tray for an affordable $959. The ML-6060N is the next model up and is identical except for the addition of a 10/100 BaseTX Ethernet adaptor, which can also be installed in the ML-6060 at a later date, providing a useful upgrade path.
Stunning performance and features arent usually expected for such a modest price, but the ML-6060 proved to be a very pleasant surprise. The core of the print engine is powered by a 66MHz RISC processor and is supported by 4Mb of RAM. This is a fairly standard configuration for a printer of this class, being similar to the Lexmark Optra E312 with its 67MHz Toshiba processor and the Kyocera FS-1000 - although the latter boasts a slightly faster 75MHz PowerPC processor.
Like the Lexmark and Kyocera, the ML-6060 offers just 4Mb of RAM as standard, which is disappointing given the current low cost of memory, and is also limiting if you often print large graphics-heavy documents. The good news, however, is that it takes standard 72-pin EDO SIMMs rather than proprietary modules, so youve got a cheap and easy upgrade path to its maximum 68Mb capacity. Another impressive feature is the capacious 550-sheet paper tray. This accommodates 300 more sheets than the Kyocera and a massive 400 sheets more than the Lexmark, which will save time wasted reloading paper in busy offices.
Performance tests kicked off with a 50-page plain text document, which was completed in four minutes, 13 seconds, making for an impressive 11.85ppm. This is a whisker short of Samsungs stated 12ppm, although the marginal difference is small enough to be negligible. Print quality was also superb, with crisp, sharp text and excellent scaling. This performance is particularly impressive when compared to the Kyocera and Lexmark, which both cost more, and only offer 10ppm claimed print speeds.
Next up was the 24-page DTP document - designed to test the printers ability to cope with text and graphics - and this started to push the Samsungs limits, slowing it down to 7.8ppm. Clearly, this speed is limited by the 4Mb of RAM bottleneck, and could be increased with a simple memory upgrade. On the positive side, the quality was excellent, and although graphics showed a slight lack of contrast, reprinting after adjusting the dithering options improved matters. Despite the relatively slow print speed, the Samsung is still almost level with the Lexmark, which managed 8.2ppm on the same task, and significantly faster than the Kyocera printer, which could only turn out 3.5ppm.
The Samsung maintained this level of performance with the Excel spreadsheet test, returning an excellent 11.76ppm - again satisfactorily close to the stated 12ppm print speed. The often difficult task of printing black text on full-colour shaded backgrounds was managed well at 10pt font sizes and above, but the text became blurred at anything lower. However, the results were cleaner than those produced by the Kyocera and also slightly better than those from the Lexmark.
The high-resolution quality test was also handled well, but it refused to print the file with Samsungs PCL6 driver at the maximum 1,200dpi setting using Samsung Resolution Enhancement Technology (SRT). However, Samsung assures us that this is a driver problem that will be corrected over time. Reducing the resolution to 600dpi resolved the problem and still produced reasonable results. Overall, graphics printing is handled well, but its not best suited to printing subtle shades and fine detail.
With SOHO lasers, economy is of equal importance to quality, and this is where the ML-6060 really shines. The only consumable is the combined toner/drum kit, which is similar to the method employed by Kyocera. The unit costs $187 and lasts for around 6,000 pages at 3c per page at five per cent coverage. Unbelievably, this comes down even further using Toner Save, a feature that works best when printing basic text, as graphics showed a slight loss of contrast. However, the unit supplied with the printer has a slightly lower yield of 3,000 pages, but this should be enough to be getting on with.
The Samsung ML-6060 is a superb mono laser printer. The output quality, print speed and running costs are all first-class, especially for such a low price, outperforming printers costing over $100 more, and making it outstanding value to boot. Not only that, but the network option and 72-pin EDO SIMM memory upgrade path make it easily expandable. The ML-6060 is a worthy successor to the 6050, and with great quality and fast print speeds it earns itself a prestigious place on our A-List.